NAGCM Forum on Fast Track Kids - my speech.

I gave a speech, as one member of the panel, at the National Association for Gifted Children, Malaysia (NAGCM) forum, at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on the 28th April 2012. The forum was entitled: "Fast Track Kids: should acceleration be allowed - for whom and why?"

I was the first speaker, since my speech was designed to introduce the issues. Following me was Ms. Kylie Booker, a gifted education teacher, who is Head of the Middle School at the Australian International School Malaysia. Lastly, Master Lucas Teh spoke, a teenager, who started University, locally, in Malaysia at the age of 15.

The forum was very well received, attracting lots of interested questions from the audience and plenty of interaction with the panel. I do believe it was the most well received forum/talk at NAGCM that I have personally witnessed (and I am not saying that just because I was on the panel!). Seriously, I think the topic "hit a nerve" and was really important to the audience, many of whom were parents of gifted children, or adults who had been gifted children themselves.

The text of my speech has been pasted below. I wrote it late the night before the forum, thinking it would be best to have a prepared speech - so it was written in a very short time frame. Therefore, it might not be perfect - but these are the words I spoke. 

Thank you.

The essential problem of giftedness in the modern world.

by Valentine Cawley

The modern world is all about equal opportunity for all. Too often, this is misunderstood to mean the same opportunity for all. What happens, however, when a child is born, who doesn’t slot into the one size fits all education models, most countries offer? Too often, such a child does not, actually, receive an equal opportunity, because such a child is too often given NO opportunity to reach their potential. So, my basic view is that children should be given opportunities to match their potentials. A child of great potential, should be given a different response to a child of average potential. This is not being unfair. This is actually being fair to the talents of both types of children.

Sadly, however, my view is not one shared by governments around the world. Sadly, in fact, governments are busy ensuring that education comes in one cookie cutter variety that is supposed to suit all. This is most dangerous to gifted children, since it cannot possibly meet their needs.

There is another problem. Every education system has budget limitations. It is difficult for them to meet the full needs of ordinary children – how, then to meet the needs of a few special ones, too? In most cases, this is considered impractical, so nothing is done, at all. The gifted children are left to suffer, often excruciating boredom, in the mainstream. Their talents are ignored and their gifts wasted. Education systems generally judge that it is not possible for them to run multiple systems to respond to multiple types of kid, with different intelligence levels – for the moderately gifted, highly gifted, exceptionally gifted and profoundly gifted are all different from each other in their respective needs and abilities. There is a much greater difference between a profoundly gifted child and a highly gifted child, than between a moderately gifted child and an average child. This is too often forgotten. Yet, those education systems that are aware of it think, like Singapore did for our son, that it is too “resource intensive” to do anything about it.

Yet, there is a cost effective answer to this problem. It is an answer that doesn’t require education authorities to spend a single dollar more, than doing nothing at all. That answer is educational acceleration.

Quite simply, acceleration means allowing a child who is younger than the typical age of a class, to join that class, either for isolated subjects, or a whole year. It can mean as moderate an intervention as skipping a year – or a major one like having a primary school kid in tertiary education. In all cases, there is no real additional cost to the system, for allowing this. Yet, it affords the gifted child an opportunity to study at a more appropriate level. It is, therefore, an ideal basic form of educational intervention in the lives of gifted children. It costs nothing, yet has definite benefits to the children so accelerated. Perhaps for the first time in their educational lives, such children may be exposed to material that is sufficiently challenging to interest them. This is a great boon for children who find age lockstep education interminably boring.

Research by Miraca Gross of the University of New South Wales gifted programme, Gerric, has shown that gifted children who are accelerated are better adjusted socially than gifted children who are held back in age lockstep classes. So, the argument that gifted kids should be held back, for social reasons, doesn’t hold water – in fact, it is dangerously wrong.

So, acceleration is beneficial and free for education systems. But what happens in practice?

I would like at this point, to speak of our own experience of acceleration.

Our son, Ainan showed very early scientific promise. He passed O level Chemistry at 7 years and 1 month. So, we expected that the Singaporean education system would allow him to accelerate. However, the response was not what we expected. Ainan was offered one hour a week at a High School in Singapore, for Chemistry, at a level he had already covered. They wouldn’t offer him the only thing we were asking for, which was practical classes – and they wouldn’t give him more than one hour a week. Eventually we managed to get six practical classes out of them. But that was it.

We asked them if he could audit other courses like Maths, at a higher level, because he had shown interest and it was necessary to balance his Chemistry, but they refused, saying he had only proven himself in Chemistry. They wouldn’t even let him sit on a class.

Note throughout this period we were forced to send him to Primary School, on pain of a fine and imprisonment if we didn’t. This was despite the fact that he found primary school a torture beyond belief, so boring was it for him. Yet, there was nothing we could do.

We asked for permission to home school him – but that permission never came. Every time I wrote to them, they would write back saying “We will revert to you, shortly” – but they never did. Months would pass, and I would write to them again – only to receive the same delay tactic reply. Finally, I got to speak to someone in the Compulsory Education Department, which is an oddly named place, for securing homeschooling permission. She would only say: “I cannot give you an answer”.

It was frustrating. So we began to make our own arrangements. It took us 22 months, from the moment we first started looking for a practical class for him, but we found them at Singapore Polytechnic, under his mentor Dr. Ng Kok Chin, who has since sadly passed away of a brain tumour. It shouldn’t have taken so long – but it was a good experience for Ainan.

Note that the educational system did not and would not make this arrangement for us. We had to make it ourselves and it took 22 months of knocking on doors to make it happen. That is a ridiculous waste of time in a young boy’s life and growth. So, the resistance to acceleration, in Singapore, had a really stultifying effect on Ainan’s growth. They basically held him back for almost two years.

That being said, Ainan passed O level Physics and AS level Chemistry in this time, by studying at home.

When Dr. Ng Kok Chin fell ill, Singapore Polytechnic withdrew its support of Ainan. So, it was clear where the support from him had come. Now, Dr. Ng Kok Chin was a Malaysian born Chinese man. That gave us a clue that perhaps Ainan would be better supported in Malaysia. So, we contacted the NAGCM President Zuhairah Ali and asked for her help in securing a University for Ainan. In very short order, she secured Ainan a place and a scholarship at a Malaysian University and we decided to emigrate to support Ainan.

So, here we are now, two years later, and Ainan is enjoying his American Degree Programme at Taylor’s University. Despite Singapore’s belief that he would only be able to handle Chemistry, he has also studied and secured qualifications in Physics, Biology, Economics, Maths, Computer Programming, Computer Animation, English and History as well. So he has become a very well rounded person. In his spare time, he composes music, plays the piano, enjoys computer games, reads humorous books, and most all, plays with his two younger brothers. He is so much richer an individual than Singapore was allowing him to be...and all because we struggled with the system, to secure him educational acceleration.

What would have happened had he not been accelerated?

He would have become completely bored with education, switched off entirely and become a kind of dropout. He would have seemed to have failed – but what really would have happened is that the education system would have failed, not him.

We saved Ainan from this fate, by battling very hard to secure what he needed. Yet, it shouldn’t be a battle. I believe that educational acceleration should be the right of every gifted child who needs it. It should be automatic. It should not need to be fought for. It should be there, for the taking.

Save our gifted kids, from wasting their talents. Allow them to be accelerated appropriately, everywhere in the world. That is the most economical answer as to how to educate gifted kids. Every country can do this, since it costs no more than the education system already spends.

So, I would urge the educational authorities to have a flexible approach to the needs of gifted children and to permit acceleration whenever it is necessary. It costs nothing, yet the pay off can be huge. So, accelerate our gifted kids, please!

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.) 

Samantha Schermanhorn and Kaylie George: proof that humans are not an intelligent species.

Samantha Schermanhorn and Kaylie George, both 13, have recently, and rather unwittingly, proved that the human species is not an intelligent one. Indeed, their action does suggest that some humans are less intelligent than a typical wild animal.

Samantha Schermanhorn and Kaylie George decided to go sunbathing recently. Now, you might think there is nothing particularly stupid about sunbathing (apart from the risk of skin cancer)...except that Samantha Schermanhorn and Kaylie George had a brilliant idea about just where to sunbathe. They chose to do so on the surface of a rural Pennsylvanian road. That is right, they were sunbathing in the road.

Now, here is where it gets even more stupid. They both fell asleep. Guess how they woke up? That is right. They woke up when they were struck by a car. Curiously, this car happened to have been driven by one of Schermanhorn's cousins. The 19 year old young man had stopped at a stop sign, then made a turn – before he ran over his dumb cousins. Apparently, though, both girls survived the collision and are now in the Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, to which they had been airlifted. News articles didn’t say whether they were in a special ward, for the uniquely dumb.

Seriously, though, this incident does show that humanity is not universally intelligent. Commentators about the human species always speak of the “intelligence” of the human race – but frankly, modern man does not bear this out. There are many very stupid people in this world – people who do things a dog wouldn’t think to do. I very much doubt whether a dog would choose to sunbathe in the middle of the road. A dog would know that cars are going to come along and drive over him or her, if they did that. It seems, though, that these two teenage girls weren’t bright enough to see the danger that sunbathing on a road put them in.

Any discussion of the intelligence of the human species needs to be more honest about the situation. Humans are not universally intelligent. In fact, the average human IQ is just 90 – which is pretty dumb, really. However, this should be further understood to mean that half of humanity has an IQ LESS THAN 90. Really, there are billions of dumb people out there...and some of them, like Samantha Schermanhorn and Kylie George are REALLY dumb...life threateningly stupid.

So, future discussions of the “intelligence” of the human species should note that humanity has a small, intelligent minority, but that vast hordes of humanity are really not very bright at all. Just ask Samantha Schermanhorn and Kaylie George. I am sure their replies, to any question at all, would be pretty convincing on the matter.

Posted by Valentine Cawley


(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.) 

Renewed interest in Ainan.

The past week has seen renewed interest in Ainan from several quarters. Unbidden, we have been contacted by various media, with interview requests. First off, was the commissioning, by the Star, of an article from me, on my personal experience of raising a child prodigy. That appeared in The Star on 25^th April 2012.

Next was a TV interview on the 12 pm and 8 pm news on NTV9 on Saturday, 28^th April 2012. This turned out to be a brief segment just after the major news of the day. They had about an hour of interview material, but they cut it down to a minute or two – so almost everything was left out, which is a pity. Nevertheless, it did manage to address a couple of interesting developments in Ainan’s life, over the past few years. Images were shown of Taylor’s University logos and their American Degree Program, which Ainan is now attending.

On Sunday, 29^th April, 2012 there was a small article in The New Paper, in Singapore about Ainan. This was a group article covering several gifted individuals. The headline title was “Meet the whiz kids”, with the individual title for Ainan’s story being: “Only 12 and he’s in Uni”. This article arose from an email interview, by the journalist Nur Asyiqin Mohamad Salleh, the week before. She asked many questions of both Ainan and myself, and received quite a few pages of answers in reply. In the end, though, the article was a brief one, at just over 140 words. It seems that the editor didn’t want to devote much space to it. However, the article mentioned that Ainan is now studying at Taylor’s University on the American Degree Program and pointed out that he is doing a balanced mixture of science, maths and humanities courses. So, though brief, it got the main message across.

It is interesting to compare the relative interest in Ainan between Malaysia and Singapore. In Malaysia, I was given 1800 words of space to write an article on raising Ainan, in the largest English daily newspaper with over a million readers. It took up three pages of the newspaper, including the front page of the Star 2 section, which consisted of a full page photo of myself and Ainan. We were also highlighted on the news, of the second most popular TV channel. In Singapore, however, we were given a 140 plus word mention, in a relatively small newspaper with a circulation of about a hundred thousand. This pattern of differential interest has held since we left Singapore for Malaysia. Our doing so, two years ago, was mentioned in almost every newspaper in Malaysia, with large articles, some of them front page articles. We were also mentioned on the news on several TV channels, as well as on the radio. It was almost blanket coverage. In Singapore, however, our move was mentioned in just ONE newspaper – a Chinese daily, in a small article. Interestingly, within a few days, the online version of that article was pulled down, as if someone wished to censor mention of it completely.

Ainan was born in Singapore, though his grandmother was born in Malaysia. One would expect, therefore, that Singapore would be very interested in discussing him in their media – however, it is Malaysia that is more interested in doing so. This could be because Ainan is half Malay and Singapore is a Chinese dominated country, that quite often plays quite obvious race politics, though they would deny it. Had Ainan been born half Chinese, I am sure the response to him in Singapore would be more enthusiastic. Anyway, it matters little. We are happy here in Malaysia. We are making progress in our life objectives – parents and children alike – and it is a comfortable country in which to live. So, we have no complaints.

I didn’t expect this recent media interest in Ainan. I cannot say whether there will be any more of it. My policy towards it, is to answer the questions of any inquiring journalist, if their newspaper or magazine seems to have honest intentions, towards the subject. Yet, we are circumspect, too. NTV9 wanted to follow Ainan around for a day, going into his every class and recording everything he did. We turned that down flat, because it would have been far too intrusive and would have made Ainan very uncomfortable – as it would make most people uncomfortable. Ainan is essentially shy. The last thing he needs is to be followed everywhere. So, we didn’t allow it. We gave them, instead, a sit down interview in a quiet lounge, since that is what Ainan was comfortable with. Thus, to those who are critical that we allow media access, I would say this: we are far more discerning about the type of access given and the way it is done, than you might think. At all times, we are careful to ensure that Ainan is comfortable with what is being asked for. We must also be comfortable with it.

The piece in the Star allowed me to put across some of the key issues relating to raising a prodigiously gifted child and I think that has an important public information role. It is my intention to raise public awareness of the particular problems gifted children face, in securing an appropriate education and upbringing. I am grateful, therefore, for any opportunity to do so.

On Saturday, 28^th April, I was one of the speakers at an NAGCM (National Association for Gifted Children Malaysia) forum on educational acceleration entitled: “Fast Track Kids: should acceleration be allowed, for whom and why?” It went very well and the discussion with the audience was very energetic and interesting – even inspiring. Many matters surrounding educational acceleration were discussed by myself, by Kylie Booker, a gifted education teacher and Head of the Middle School, at the Australian International School Malaysia and by Lucas Teh, who went to a local University aged 15.

There was a journalist in attendance, so I am hoping that there will be an article about the forum and the issues discussed. I will let you know if there is.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)